He Stabbed His Wife for Another Woman Then the Doctor Revealed the Twins

""The knife looked absurdly small in Flynn’s hand until he drove it into me.

I had been staring at the strip of apple peel curled beside his shoe, trying to understand how a conversation could turn into violence before my brain had caught up with the first shout.

“If you ever put your hands on Selina again, I swear to God I will kill you.”

His voice sounded rough and unfamiliar, as though somebody had reached inside my husband and replaced him with a stranger who happened to know my name.

“Flynn, I didn’t touch her.”

Selina stood behind him with one hand wrapped around her opposite forearm.

There was a red line near her wrist, thin enough that I could see where the skin had barely broken.

Her mascara had run beneath both eyes.

She looked frightened.

That was the convincing part.

“I came here because I didn’t know where else to go,” she said.

Her voice trembled at exactly the right places.

“She followed me outside the café, and when I tried to leave, she shoved me against the railing.”

“I have been home all day.”

Flynn turned toward me so quickly that the knife he had been using to slice an apple slipped from his fingers and landed on the living-room rug.

I remember noticing that because the rug had cost an embarrassing amount of money, and some detached part of me thought the blade might stain it.

Then he bent down and picked it up.

“Did you hurt her?”

“No.”

“Mabel.”

“I said no.”

Selina made a small choking sound.

“Please don’t fight because of me.”

I looked past Flynn at her.

For half a second, her crying stopped.

Not completely.

Just enough.

Her eyes met mine, steady and dry behind the tears.

That was when fear finally reached me.

I stepped backward.

“Flynn, put the knife down.”

He moved with me.

“You’ve hated her since the day she came back.”

“I hated what happened to our marriage after she came back.”

“Same thing.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“You embarrassed her at the foundation dinner.”

“She asked me in front of twenty people whether I felt threatened by your history together.”

“You could have walked away.”

“I did.”

Selina whispered his name.

Flynn glanced over his shoulder.

That tiny movement seemed to settle something inside him.

When he faced me again, his jaw was clenched.

His eyes had the furious certainty of a man who had already decided what happened and needed only enough anger to justify what he intended to do about it.

I put out one hand.

“Listen to me for ten seconds.”

He didn’t.

The first stab landed low on the left side of my abdomen.

There was pressure before there was pain.

A blunt, impossible punch entered my body, followed by heat so intense that my knees folded.

I grabbed his wrist on instinct.

He jerked free.

“Flynn.”

I don’t know whether I meant stop, help me, or look at me.

The second strike came higher.

This time the pain arrived immediately.

I fell against the edge of the coffee table and knocked over the glass of water I had been drinking.

The glass didn’t break.

It rolled in a slow circle beneath the table while water spread across the hardwood.

For years afterward, whenever I saw a glass rolling on its side, I would hear Selina crying.

I pressed both hands to my stomach.

Blood came through my fingers.

Flynn stood above me breathing hard.

The anger disappeared from his face.

For one second, I thought he finally saw me.

Then Selina whimpered.

He turned away.

He crossed the three steps between them, removed his suit jacket, and placed it around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” he said.

His voice softened.

“She won’t touch you again.”

I looked at the back of his white shirt.

I had chosen that shirt for him two Christmases earlier because he complained that every dress shirt pulled across his shoulders.

My hands were red.

His shirt was spotless.

Selina peered around him.

Her expression changed only when she was certain he couldn’t see her.

The corners of her mouth lifted.

It wasn’t a triumphant smile.

That would have been easier to understand.

It was small, almost bored, like someone seeing an unpleasant task completed.

I tried to speak.

Nothing came out but air.

The room tilted.

Somewhere near the entryway, our housekeeper screamed.

Then there were footsteps, Flynn shouting something, Selina saying she felt faint, and Mrs. Alvarez’s hands pressing a folded dish towel against my abdomen while she swore at somebody in Spanish.

The last thing I remember was Flynn saying, “Call an ambulance,” as though the idea had only just occurred to him.

I woke three days later to the mechanical hiss of oxygen and the taste of metal at the back of my tongue.

At first, I believed I was in a hotel room.

The ceiling was too white.

The sheets were stiff.

Then I tried to move.

Pain tore through my abdomen.

A woman in navy scrubs appeared beside the bed.

“Easy.”

My throat hurt.

“Where am I?”

“Northwestern.”